Europe: Unilever Europe wins major European Community Engagement Excellence Award

Community relations excellence

The Barclays European Community Engagement Award, presented by Business in the Community, is given each year to a company that demonstrates excellence in community relations. The awards came at the end of a selection process involving 100 independent assessors from business, government and voluntary organisations.

Dominique Bé from the European Commission's Employment and Social Affairs Directorate chaired the panel of judges and noted that "the sheer ambition and reach of this company-wide volunteering initiative is inspirational...Unilever's Vitality Summer was truly a pan-European initiative which has produced countless examples of positive impact."

Vitality Summer 2004 was Unilever Home and Personal Care's first pan-European community engagement initiative. Its aim was to celebrate our new Vitality mission under the slogan, 'Give a little bit.' The scheme challenged employees to come up with creative ways of breathing life into their communities. In total, 3 500 employees from 29 factories and head offices right across Europe responded to the challenge. Their initiatives helped over 5 000 disadvantaged people and more than 65 charities and community groups from the UK to Romania, Moscow to Milan.

Addressing local needs

Every employee in the European business was given one day over a two week period to volunteer for a community project that they themselves had helped to plan. These projects had to address a key local social need, focusing on the homeless, disadvantaged children, people with disabilities, the elderly and the environment.

In Germany, Unilever employees wanted to give the residents of a home for mentally disabled people the opportunity to become self-sufficient. They sourced a 2 000 metre sq field just outside Hamburg and created a working garden for the residents to grow and sell their own fruit and vegetables.

300 employees from our Port Sunlight site in the UK took part in more than 20 different projects, ranging from building a sensory garden for children with cerebral palsy to cleaning the local beach and streams. Many of the site's contractors also volunteered their support. In the Czech Republic, another team refurbished an after-school activity centre, giving 400 children a bright and fresh environment to have fun in, while in Italy 100 employees worked with WWF to transform a wildlife sanctuary, building bird-watching points and revamping bridges and fences. In Finland our employees recorded talking books for the blind, while in Switzerland they helped to produce and deliver meals for disadvantaged people, demonstrating that there are many and varied ways of addressing community needs.

Community & business benefits

Simon Goldrick, European External Relations and Corporate Responsibility Manager and project co-ordinator said "Vitality Summer has given us the chance to increase our professionalism in the community involvement area. It is a wonderful example of what can be achieved when a company fully integrates itself with the communities in which it works. This awards recognises our determination to play a full and proper role in society, and we are extremely proud to receive it."

This is not the first time that Vitality Summer has been recognised for the impact that it has had on the local community. In Spain, the project was shortlisted to one of three finalists for the Best European Community Involvement Project by the Empresa y Sociedad Fund. In the UK the project was a finalist in the Corporate Social Responsibility category from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

Whilst the benefits that Vitality Summer has provided to the local communities are clear, the business benefits are equally impressive. As John Nolan, Senior Vice President HR Leadership Development and the project sponsor said, "Vitality Summer not only gave our employees the opportunity to understand the everyday needs of the people living around us, it offered some fantastic leadership experience and gave us the opportunity to tangibly express the values at the heart of Unilever's mission".